just couldn't resist

I hope you all had as much fun on Halloween as we did!  Thanks to all of you who voted for our costumes! 

And we just couldn't resist...

"It's the great pumpkin Charlie Brown"

Okay,  I just can't keep it a surprise any longer!  Canyon inspired our costume idea this year because he really wanted to be Charlie Brown.  He had Ian on his side, because he was thinking snoopy all the way!  Aryn was in too, but it took some convincing to get Megan to give up her "vampiress" plans!

We entered a contest at KUTV, you can vote for us here - our entry is on page 6.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

"i'm done"

Last week when I took the pictures of my two nephews, we had spent about an hour, and these shots were taken at the very end.  Needless to say, we were all getting a little tired, and Nicholas wasn't the only one thinking "i'm done."  (He was just the only one saying it).  Anyway, the last few pictures we took were terrible!!  I was struggling with the light, getting terrible shadows, I hated the set up, Nick was having hard time holding the baby up, and Chance was getting fussy!  When I pulled these images up on the computer, I thought "what in the world am I going to do now!" 

Anyway, I really do hate sharing some of my sooc images, but I wanted to show you the before and after on these, because they ended up being some of my favorite shots!  Although I don't claim to be a photoshop expert, in fact I'm far from it, I am so glad I was able to save these!

chance

Here are some "official" pictures of my newest nephew, Chance.  He has a very proud big brother too!  Congratulations Kyle and Kristy - we love you!!  The girls are waiting for you to plan your date night so we can have the boys for a few hours!!

morning greeting...

Every morning when I wake up, one of the first things I do is open my front blinds.  These past few days I have been greeted with these beautiful colors brightened up by the morning sun.  I've been wanting to get out to take some fall pictures, but haven't had a chance yet!  Maybe next week!  So today I captured what I see every morning and thought I'd share it with you.

For you photographers out there, here is an experiment I did this morning to get the image above.  First I took an image exposing the trees, which completely blew out the sky.  Then I took another image exposing the sky which took all of the light off the trees.  I loved the sky and loved the light on the trees, so I opened both images to combine them.  I moved the sky image on top of the tree image as a new layer.  Then I added a mask and painted back the trees so I wouldn't have to sacrifice the beautiful blue sky.  I love getting the correct exposure on my subject, but sometimes don't like having my sky blown out.  Something to think about when you don't want to lose your sky - take two exposures and combine them!!  Here are the two shots and then the combined one.